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Sacred Cod
The Sacred Cod is a four-foot-eleven-inch (150 cm) carved-wood effigy of an Atlantic codfish, painted to the life, hanging in the House of Representatives chamber of Boston's Massachusetts State House—"a memorial of the importance of the Cod-Fishery to the welfare of this Commonwealth" (i.e. Massachusetts, of which cod is officially the "historic and continuing symbol"). The Sacred Cod has gone through as many as three incarnations over three centuries: the first (if it really existed—the authoritative source calling it a "prehistoric creature of tradition") was lost in a 1747 fire; the second disappeared during the American Revolution; and the third, installed in 1784, is the one seen in the House chamber today.
"Sacred Cod" is not a formal name but a nickname which appeared in 1895, soon after the carving was termed "the sacred emblem" by a House committee appointed "to investigate the significance of the emblem [which] has kept its place under all administrations, and has looked upon outgoing and incoming legislative assemblies, for more than one hundred years".[C] Soon sacred cod was being used in reference to actual codfish as well, in recognition of the creature's role in building Massachusetts's prosperity and influence since early colonial times.
In 1933 the Sacred Cod was briefly "Cod-napped" by editors of the Harvard Lampoon, prompting police to drag the Charles River and search an airplane landing in New Jersey. In 1968 it was again taken briefly, this time by students at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
A fish figure is displayed in the State House Senate chamber as well—a brass casting (sometimes called the Holy Mackerel) above its central chandelier.
Years before the statesmen of the period had decided to make public acknowledgement of the indebtedness of the colony to the codfish, and had voted to adorn the assembly chamber with a wooden representation thereof, individuals and private corporations were eager to pay tribute to the codfish, and vied with one another in their anxiety to make the recognition as conspicuous as possible.
Codfishing was the first industry practiced by Europeans in Massachusetts, and it is said that the colony's first export was a cargo of fish.[C] Thus the codfish has been an important New England symbol for centuries, its image appearing on many early coins, stamps, corporate and government seals, and insignia such as the early crest of the Salem Gazette. In 1743 a prominent Salem businessman built a mansion in which "the end of every stair in his spacious hall [displayed] a carved and gilded codfish", [C] and in the 19th century the nouveau riche merchant families of New England were sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as the "codfish aristocracy".
In the late 1920s an "amusing" (as author H. P. Lovecraft termed it) codfish emblem appeared briefly, "totem-like", on Massachusetts license plates.
Poised high aloft the old hall of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, riding serenely the sound waves of debate, unperturbed by the ebb and flow of enactment and repeal or the desultory storms that vexed the nether depths of oratory, there has hung through immemorial years an ancient codfish, quaintly wrought in wood and painted to the life.
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Sacred Cod AI simulator
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Sacred Cod
The Sacred Cod is a four-foot-eleven-inch (150 cm) carved-wood effigy of an Atlantic codfish, painted to the life, hanging in the House of Representatives chamber of Boston's Massachusetts State House—"a memorial of the importance of the Cod-Fishery to the welfare of this Commonwealth" (i.e. Massachusetts, of which cod is officially the "historic and continuing symbol"). The Sacred Cod has gone through as many as three incarnations over three centuries: the first (if it really existed—the authoritative source calling it a "prehistoric creature of tradition") was lost in a 1747 fire; the second disappeared during the American Revolution; and the third, installed in 1784, is the one seen in the House chamber today.
"Sacred Cod" is not a formal name but a nickname which appeared in 1895, soon after the carving was termed "the sacred emblem" by a House committee appointed "to investigate the significance of the emblem [which] has kept its place under all administrations, and has looked upon outgoing and incoming legislative assemblies, for more than one hundred years".[C] Soon sacred cod was being used in reference to actual codfish as well, in recognition of the creature's role in building Massachusetts's prosperity and influence since early colonial times.
In 1933 the Sacred Cod was briefly "Cod-napped" by editors of the Harvard Lampoon, prompting police to drag the Charles River and search an airplane landing in New Jersey. In 1968 it was again taken briefly, this time by students at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
A fish figure is displayed in the State House Senate chamber as well—a brass casting (sometimes called the Holy Mackerel) above its central chandelier.
Years before the statesmen of the period had decided to make public acknowledgement of the indebtedness of the colony to the codfish, and had voted to adorn the assembly chamber with a wooden representation thereof, individuals and private corporations were eager to pay tribute to the codfish, and vied with one another in their anxiety to make the recognition as conspicuous as possible.
Codfishing was the first industry practiced by Europeans in Massachusetts, and it is said that the colony's first export was a cargo of fish.[C] Thus the codfish has been an important New England symbol for centuries, its image appearing on many early coins, stamps, corporate and government seals, and insignia such as the early crest of the Salem Gazette. In 1743 a prominent Salem businessman built a mansion in which "the end of every stair in his spacious hall [displayed] a carved and gilded codfish", [C] and in the 19th century the nouveau riche merchant families of New England were sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as the "codfish aristocracy".
In the late 1920s an "amusing" (as author H. P. Lovecraft termed it) codfish emblem appeared briefly, "totem-like", on Massachusetts license plates.
Poised high aloft the old hall of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, riding serenely the sound waves of debate, unperturbed by the ebb and flow of enactment and repeal or the desultory storms that vexed the nether depths of oratory, there has hung through immemorial years an ancient codfish, quaintly wrought in wood and painted to the life.